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This refers to printed material from Europe prior to the 1500s. (It’s the plural form; the singular is “incunabule.”)
The etymology is from a Latin word meaning “swaddling clothes,” which refers to the “infancy” of printing during this period. (Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 1430s.)
In this sense, it reminds me of Antediluvian, which literally means a time period before the Great Flood of the Old Testament, but has come to mean, simply, something very old.
With a smile that did not reach his eyes, he began to shed books everywhere, in a determined fashion that didn’t brook arguments. As he did so, he launched into a breathless diatribe about how important these incunabula were…
This technically means “before the Great Flood.” “Diluvial” means “related to a flood.” But, over the years, it’s become a synonym for “old” or “ancient,” when used to refer to non-historical things. “Diluvian” means “related to or brought about by a flood” and “ante” is the prefix for “before.”
This is the story of a book – a fictional novel by a classic Greek author – and how it moves through the lives of five people over thousands of years. The book tracks through three time periods. 1400s in Europe. A boy is conscripted into The Ottoman Army to sack Constantinople, and a girl in that...
I don’t really know what to do with this one. It’s a pretty unique book, but I really liked it. It’s fiction, but not regular fiction. It’s like a series of blog posts written in the first person by a man who went to work at an old book shop in London. Each post is some aspect of what it’s like to...
This is an…eclectic history of paper. It starts where you would expect it to – somewhere in China, where paper was invented. The author traced the history while on a “paper history” tour. But then the book goes to some fascinating places as it investigates the role paper has played in our lives, in...